Alexander of Aphrodisias

(fl. second-third century a.d.)

philosophy.

Alexander was a Peripatetic philosopher of the second-third century among whose masters were Herminus, Sosigenes, and Aristocles. His fame rests mainly on his interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrines, the scholarly qualities of which earned him the sobriquet of “the interpreter” (δἐξηγητής). Of his works other than commentaries, four have survived in Greek manuscripts; On the Soul; On Fate; a writing going under the title On Mixture; and another, in four books, going under the title Natural Questions, of which the fourth book, however, deals mainly with ethical problems. Additional material is likely to be found in Arabic and Armenian.

Of these, the second part of On the Soul and the Natural Questions are collections of short pieces (some twenty–five in On the Soul, sixty–nine in the Questions) dealing with a great variety of topics and representing different literary forms. It is rather certain that these collections were not arranged or edited by Alexander, and that some pieces are inauthentic. But few of the problems thus posed have yet been sufficiently explored; the following presentation of Alexander’s doctrines will be based indiscriminately on texts handed down to us under his name.

Of his commentaries on Aristotle, those on Analytica priora I, Topics, Meteorologica, and On Sense and Sensibilia survive in their entirety. Of the commentary on Metaphysics under his name, only the part dealing with Metaphysics A–Λ is genuine; the rest, usually referred to as a work by Pseudo-Alexander (his identity is not known), is not his, although it does contain some genuine passages. Of other commentaries, only fragments in the form of quotations in other commentators on Aristotle survive. Of his interpretations of Aristotle (either in formal commentaries or in other writings), two are particularly famous. Whereas Aristotle made Plato’s ideas immanent in the sensible individuals but insisted that only this “ideal” (i.e., universal) aspect of sensibles can be known, so that with regard to us the individual (object of sensation) is prior to the universal–although the universal is actually prior to the individual–Alexander went one step further and declared that only individuals actually exist, the universals existing only as products of our mental (noetic) activity (υοειυ), which abstracts them from the individuals (or the individual existing only in one exemplar e.g., the phoenix). Therefore, the universals exist only as long as they are perceived. Alexander calls them υοητά(usually translated “intelligibles,” in which case (υοειυ) would best be translated “to intelligize” we could then translated the noun υους, the agent of intelligizing, as “intelligence“: one of the Latin translations of υους is mens, to which, unfortunately, only the adjective “mental” corresponds in English).

But in addition to these intelligibles (corresponding to Plato’s transcendent ideas made immanent by Aristotle) existing only as the results of our mental acts, Alexander admits the existence of intelligibles existing outside the realm of the sensible. Roughly, they correspond to Aristotle’s “pure” forms, of which the best–known example is his supreme deity, the Unmoved Mover. These “higher” intelligibles (κυρίωςυοητά) have one thing in common with the lower ones: they exist only as objects of mental (noetic) acts, but the υους (intelligence) that intelligizes (“perceives”) them is not our human intelligence. Rather, it is a (or the) divine intellect, one of whose marks is that its activity is eternal and incessant, so that these “higher” intelligibles also exist eternally and incessantly. They are “caused” by the highest intelligible, in the description of whose causality Alexander anticipates some Neoplatonic categories. The mental act perceiving them does not “abstract” them form matter, for they are not embodied.

Connected with this piece of noetics is another, with the help of which Alexander interprets a most difficult aspect of Aristotle’s psychology in his On the Soul, Book III, chapters 4 and 5. According to Alexander, Aristotle teaches the existence of human intelligence (Alexander calls it passive, or potential, or material intelligence), which is different for different individuals and is part of everybody’s soul, and of another intelligence, which is identical with the Supreme Deity, called active intelligence (it is this intelligence that incessantly and eternally perceives itself by perceiving the “higher” intelligibles). This intelligence-Deity is unique; it “enters” man from without (i.e., it is not connected in any way with his body); it is active also in the sense of activating the human intelligence, thus enabling this intelligence to perceive intelligibles of both the lower and the higher order. Human intelligence thus activated (we could also say “transformed,” and Alexander almost says “divinized”) in different aspects of its activity is called by Alexander intelligence “in action.” or “acquired as habit,” or “acquired as disponible skill” (έυεργείαι έπίκτος, κάθ′ ε̈ξιυ). The most conspicuous result of this theory is the denial of any kind of personal immortality. Man’s soul perishes with his body; his intelligence, qua transformed by the active intelligence, survives by being reabsorbed into that unique, impersonal, divine intelligence. It is remarkable that Pseudo-Alexander describes the experience of “transformation,” after which human intelligence becomes capable of perceiving the “higher” intelligibles, as a mystical (ineffable) experience. The assertion or the denial of the correctness of Alexander’s interpretation of Aristotle and, even more, the correctness of the doctrine (denial of personal immortality) became one of the great controversies of the Middle Ages and early modern times.

Only a few other doctrines of Alexander can be mentioned here.

(1) In Aristotle’s writings all change is ultimately reduced to locomotion, and prime locomotion is attributed to the celestial bodies (fixed stars and planets, and their spheres). Three explanations are given of the cause of this locomotion. One is that all celestial bodies are moved by being attracted to their Unmoved Mover as lovers are attracted by the objects of their love; the second is that they consist of an element, the ether, which by nature moves eternally, incessantly, and circularly; the third is that they are animated and moved by their souls. Alexander tried to reconcile these three explanations. Ether is animated and the soul is its nature. This soul desires to imitate the Unmoved Mover, which it does by eternally circling him.

(2) Alexander undertakes to prove that man’s will is free (or, as the Greek has it, that there are things in our power, έϕ’ ήμῖυ). One of his main arguments is that nature distinguished man from other animals by endowing him with the faculty of deliberation, which mediates between stimuli (ϕαυτασίαι) and actions, whereas animals simply react to stimuli. And since nature does nothing in vain, the exercise of this deliberative faculty results in reasonable assent to (or dissent form) stimuli, which proves that we are free to choose.

(3) Another theory explaining the freedom of will is based on the assertion that whereas the realm of the eternal and immutable is, if we may say so, full of being, the realm of the changeable (of becoming and perishing) is permeated by nonbeing. In fact, this nonbeing is responsible for such things as chance and freedom of the will; there is no cause of these phenomena.

(4) Connected with the free–will theory is Alexander’s treatment of the problem of fate or destiny (είμαρμέυη) i.e., the doctrine of an unbroken causal chain. The fact of human freedom proves this doctrine wrong. The meaning of the word “fate” should be taken to indicate that everything acts according to its own, individual, nongeneric nature (ϕύσις); in fact, “fate” and “nature” coincide without abridgment of man’s freedom.

(5) Alexander discusses the problem of providence. He denies that the divine provides in a direct way (προηγουμέυως), i.e., the way a shepherd provides for his flock; such providence, says Alexander, would amount to saying that the divine (superior) exists for the sake of or profits from the inferior. He also denies that the effects of divine providence are merely accidental (κατά συμβεβηκός), but he does insist that there are other manners of divine providence, and promises to prove that contrary to what others have asserted, Aristotle recognizes providence. Alexander himself at least tentatively identifies the sum total of effects emanating from the everlasting circular movement of the celestial bodies with providence, its main effect being the generic immortality of perishable individuals of which the world of becoming consists.

(6) Alexander asserts the existence of natural justice. His main proof is that nature created man to live in community; that there can be no community without justice; that therefore justice is natural (ϕύσει)

(7) The object of man’s fundamental desire (πὸπρω̃του οἰκει̃ου)is pleasure (the apparent good) rather than, e.g., self-preservation.

(8) Moral perfection (άρετή) does not guarantee a happy life, as can be seen from the fact that a morally perfect man is justified in committing suicide for good reasons (ε̕ύλσγος έξαγωγή), which he would never do if his life were a happy one.

(9) Nobody can possess one moral perfection (άρετή), such as courage, without possessing all others.

(10) Alexander devotes a comparatively large amount of space to the problem of vision and related problems.

(11) Alexander refutes in great detail the Stoic doctrine of total interpenetration of bodies (κραᾰσις δι’οὅλου), which he feels is the foundation of the main tenets of the whole Stoic system.

(12) The magnet attracts because iron desires it, just as other things, although inanimate, desire that which nature has destined for them.

In any history of the problem of squaring the circle, Alexander is likely to be mentioned as he commented on all passages in which Aristotle criticized the methods used for this purpose by Hippocrates of Chios, Bryson, and Antiphon, always briefly to the point of obscurity. It seems that Alexander, probably misled by Aristotle, falsely assumed that Hippocrates did not distinguish lunules formed on quadrants (sides of a square inscribed in a circle) from sextants (sides of a hexagon inscribed in a circle), and also assumed that Antiphon violated the principle that a curve and a straight line can have only a point in common, which probably implies that Antiphon asserted the existence of atomic lengths of which both curves and straight lines would consist. On this basis Alexander rejected Hippocrates’ and Antiphon’s methods of squaring the circle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Original Works. All commentaries mentioned in the text are available in the collection Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, 23 vols. (Berlin, 1882–1909), Vols, II and III in 2 parts each. All his other writings preserved in Greek are in Supplementum Aristotelicum, II, pts. 1 and 2 (Berlin, 1887–1892). The content of a writing on providence, translated from Greek into Arabic, has been translated into French in P. Thillet, “Un traité inconnu d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise sur la Providence dans une version arabe inédite,” in Actes du Premier Congrès International de Philosophie Médiévale (Louvain–Paris, 1960), pp. 313–324, See also A. Dietrich, “Die arabische Version einer unbekannten Schrift des Alexander von Aphrodisias über die differentia specifica,” in Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, 1 (1964), 90–148; E.G. Schmidt, “Alexander von Aphrodisias in einem altarmenischen Kategrien–Kommentar,” in Philologus, 110 (1966), 277286; J.van Ess, “Über einige neue Fragmente des Alexander on Aphrodisias und des Proklos in arabischer “Übersetzung,” in Der Islam, 42 (1966), 148–168. Translations of Alexander’s works include On Destiny, A. FitzGerald. ed. and trans. (London, 1931); and Commentary on Book IV of Aristotle’s Meteorologica, V.C.B. Coutant, trans. (New York, 1936).

II. Secondary Literature. A brief but comprehensive presentation is E. Zeller, Die Philosophic der Griechen, 5th ed., III, pt. I (Leipzig, 1923; repr. 1963), 817–830. Still briefer are A. Tognolo, “Alessandro di Aphrodisia” and “Alessandrismo”, in Enciclopedia filosofica, I (VeniceRome, 1957), 136–139; and F. Ueberweg and K. Praechter, Die Philosophie des Altertums, 12th ed. (Berlin, 1926; repr. Basel, 1953). Special problems are discussed in I. Bruns, “Studien zu Alexander von Aphrodisias,” in Rheinisches Museum, 44 (1889), 613–630; 45 (1890), 138–145, 223–235; and Preface to his ed. of the Natural Questions in Supplementum Aristotelicum (see above), pp. v–xiv; E. Freudenthal, “Die durch Averroes erhaltenen Fragmente Alexanders zur Metaphysik des Aristoteles,” in Abhandlungen der Berliner Akademie com Jahre 1884 (Berlin, 1885); P. Merlan, “Ein Simplikios-Zitat bei Ps. Alexandros and ein Plotinos-Zitat bei Simplikios,” in Rheinisches Museum, 84 (1935), 154–160; Philologische Wochenschrift. 58 (1938), 65–69; and Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness (The Hague, 1963), Index, under “Alexander” and “Pseudo-Alexander” P. Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégéte de la noètique d’Aristote (Paris, 1942); and J. Zahlfleisch, “Die Polemik Alexandres von Aphrodisias gegen die verschiedenen Theorien des Sehens,” in Archiv für Geshichte der Philosophie, 8 (1895), 373–386, 489–509; 9 (1896), 149–162. Additional literature is listed in Ueberweg and Praechter (see above).

Virtually all presentations of Aristotle’s noetics deal with Alexander; a recent example is L. Barbotin, La théorie aristotelicienne de l’intellect d’aprés Théophraste (Louvain, 1954). Other recent literature includes O. Becker, “Formallogisches and Mathematisches in griechischen philosophischen Texten,” in Philologus, 100 (1956), 108–112; R. Hackforth, “Notes on Some Passages of Alexander Aphrodisiensis De fato,” in Classical Quarterly, 40 (1946), 37–44; F. P. Hager, “Die Aristotelesinterpretation des Alexander von Aphrodisias und die Aristoteleskritik Plotins bezüglich der Lehre vom Geist,” in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 46 (1964), 174–187; P. Henry, “Une comparaison chez Aristote, Alexandre et Plotin,” in Les sources de Plotin (Geneva, 1960), PP. 429–444; H. Langerbeck, “Zu Alexander von Aphrodisias’ De fato,” in Hermes, 64 (1936), 473–474; S. Luria, “Die Infinitesimaltheorie der antiken Atomisten,” in Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik, Abteilung B; Studien2 (1932), 106–185; P. Moraux, “Alexander von Aphrodisias Quaestiones 2, 3,” in Hermes, 95 (1967), 159–169; R. A. Pack, “A Passage in Alexander of Aphrodisias Relating to the Theory of Tragedy,” in American Journal of Philology, 58 (1937), 418–436; S. Pines, “Omne quod movetur necesse est ab aliquo moveri: A Refutation of Galen by Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Theory of Motion,” in Isis, 52 (1961), 21–54; J. M. Rist, “On Tracking Alexander of Aphrodisias,” in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 48 (1996), 82–90.

Philip Merlan